


team lad(ie)s action news team

by sajere1



Category: Red vs. Blue
Genre: Agender Character, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-02 00:03:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2792516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sajere1/pseuds/sajere1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You know what we should do?” Kai hums, picking up her coffee for a quick gulp – and, before you can answer, continues. “We should be, like, a news team for the update. Since Simmons isn’t here.”</p><p>“The Simmons-free news?” Sheila muses from her dusty corner.</p><p>“Nah,” Kai shakes her head. “Like…Team Ladies Action News Team.” She grins. “Two teams ‘cause Sheila isn’t a lady, so she isn’t part of the team ladies’ news.”</p><p>[or: your name is tex dresden and you are an outsider]</p>
            </blockquote>





	team lad(ie)s action news team

Hidden in the shadows of dark city streets, you reload your gun and line up your shot.

It’s not difficult – the victim is standing out in the open, carelessly perusing her phone with a lace-gloved hand. Your target: Kaikaina Grif, a stout woman dressed in a smooth suit with a permanent white mask, hands empty of weapons as she tucks her phone in her pocket and wanders into the unassuming clothing store. You’re crouched, rifle zoomed to a perfect headshot, with a solid cover behind the lip of the roof you’re settled on and a sweet space monkey mask assisting your vision. You prepare to pull the trigger, and –

“Okay,” Kai says from her seat next to you, “but if you switched bodies with James Franco, then – _god dammit, Tex!”_

“James Franco?” Tucker snorts just as _PFLTexas cancelled Lttl Sstr_ appears in the corner of the screen. The music is silenced, but there’s no mistaking _Grand Theft Auto V_ ’s graphics or the mismatched clothes you’ve scrounged from across the map. “Nice one, Tex.”

“One point to me, I broke Team Fuck You,” you report, and the reigning king Church gives you a thumbs up just as Grif yelps “ _Fuck me!_ ”

“Broke Team Incest,” Kai reports unnecessarily as _Lttl Sstr killed DGrif_ fades into view. You can’t hold back a snort of laughter; at the sound of it, she glances up to wink at you and your ears go hot. “Great spawn there. Okay, but anyway, if you switched bodies – “

“Team Incest?” Grif interrupts at the same time Church says “Wait, what?” with a wrinkled nose. His eyebrows are rising steadily and – _fuck you sideways, that son of a bitch has his mic facing the wrong way again._

“You said if we could come up with a good enough team name you’d count it,” Kai reminds him, and you shake your head at her proffered high five as Dexter glares at you both. Church rolls his eyes but doesn’t interrupt as you jot down a line for Kai.

“Leonard,” you tack on before the conversation can move forward, “turn your fucking mic around.”

There is a short pause, and then Church shouts “ _Sonovabitch!_ ” and slams his hand on the desk.

Real charmer, your boss.

“This is so unfair,” Grif sulks from across the room, glancing at his abysmal tally where you’ve been keeping score on Church’s self-proclaimed ‘Team Breaking Exercise.’ “The rest of Team Red is out of the office.”

“So? You’re on teams with us,” Tucker protests, his eyes riveted to some C4 he’s sticking on the back of a firetruck.

“I’m on _one_ team with you guys,” Grif snaps, “and that’s Team Jailbait, which is with Church, who I _can’t kill_.”

“I broke Team Gay Robot!” Caboose chirps suddenly. “See, you can kill Church! I just did.”

“Shut the fuck up, Caboose,” Church groans, rubbing his forehead.

Then, the impossible – or at least, the highly unlikely: Sheila pipes up from her couch in the corner, “Four tallies to me.”

“ _What?_ ” you demand, and in sync you all turn to your screens to the realization that while the you had been bickering, Sheila had single handedly picked off every single member of Team Blue – except Kaikaina, who’s picked off her brother again just because she can. You gape a moment before turning over your shoulder and demanding, “Sheila. I thought we had a _connection_.”

“Holy shit,” Church mutters as Sheila gives you a deadpan look that quickly blossoms into a smile. “Alright, so let’s – shit, lemme think.” He points to himself, momentarily lost in thought. “Team Second Amendment.” He points at Caboose, squinting slightly. “Teamtorial.” He points and Tucker, mouth tightening to a frown. “Team…” He pauses, clicking his tongue as he searches before jolting slightly in his chair. “Team Same Couch! Right.” He pauses counting on his fingers. “And…?”

“Robot Queers,” you interject. “Now renamed Robot Betrayal.”

“Right!” Church sighs, slouching now that he’s listed off the appropriate names, eyes tracking your fingers as you tally up the scores. “That puts Sheila in the lead, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” you grumble. Then, after a moment’s silence, you add, “I _was_ winning by two.”

“Aw _shit_ ,” Kaikaina crows next to you. “And there’s only, like, a minute left, too!”

“More like fifteen seconds, actually.” You can almost _feel_ Church’s dumb smirk from across the room. “Better hurry up, Texas.”

You pause for a moment. Then you hit a button.

_PFLTexas committed suicide._

“I killed Team Leonard’s a Piece of Shit Who’s Sleeping on the Couch Tonight,” you report, and Kaikaina laughs so hard that she falls off her seat just as time runs out.

“It wasn’t that funny,” Church grunts. You ignore him and spin in your chair to trade double-pistols-and-winks with Tucker. “Sheila wins. Alright assholes, get the fuck to the meeting point, she won another section of the goddamn Sarcophagus. That puts her at – what, three?”

“Tied with Tex,” she agrees, voice serene and pleasant as always.

“Oh! Mad Queen Sheila!” Caboose pipes up.

“Always nice to have a teammate backing you up,” you mutter, taking a moment to hijack a car and set a waypoint where Church is standing on the other side of the goddamn map.

“Oh, stop whining.” Church rolls his eyes and you flip him off without glancing away from your screen.

“Okay,” Kaikaina says, settling back into her chair and casting her character model a serious look. “So. If you switched bodies with James Franco…”

+x+

So here’s the story – beginning-middle-end, no dialogue, no imagery, no bullshit. Straightforward. The way you like it.

Your name is Tex Dresden and you are an outsider.

You’re really named Allison, because your mother was kind of fucking horrible for most of your life and decided that naming you after herself was a brilliant idea, but you’ve wasted most of your time trying to get ten thousand miles away from anything remotely related to her so Tex is preferred please and thank you.

You live with Leonard Church in a house that his dad pays for, which would be a hot fucking topic if only the two of you weren’t step-siblings. Also exes. You dated him, his dad met your mom, bada bing bada boom, the dream of Leonard Dresden was no more. Sometimes people ask how you feel about this. You tell them mostly okay. The “mostly” is accurate. The “okay” is not.

You and Church, coincidentally, are also the cofounders of the video game company _Project: Freelancer_. This is an incredibly long story, but to shorten it up: machinima. That’s it.

Well, mostly machinima.

The thing is, _Project: Freelancer_ was the first – and probably most successful – company of its kind, a metaphorical prodigy in the art of animation with video games. But there came a point where you got…well, you got too big for your own good. You took on some new projects. Church and some Rose chick made a deal for a cross-company show – _Achieve_ or something, you’re not too invested in that part of the company anymore past the occasional animation. Long story short, you got kind of short-staffed…so you made some new hires.

Of these new hires included the entire community group _RED vs BLUE_ , a group of Let’s Players.

Things just sort of happened from there.

So now you have long since become the most valuable player on Team Blue – except maybe Wash, who makes occasional visits when someone takes a day off – and Church has migrated from the boss of _Project: Freelancer_ to the boss of the Let’s Play division, _RED vs BLUE_ , leaving your company in the more than capable hands of one Vanessa Kimball.

Also your mom is dead, but. You know.

Shit like that just doesn’t go away.

+x+

You don’t know why Gulch is so fucking cold this year. Sure, it’s December, but it’s also the stereotypical Texan desert, so by all logic you should still be drinking piña coladas in a sunblock-stained bikini. Instead, you’re stuck rubbing your forearms for hope of friction and wishing you had your leather jacket, bare elbow rough against the frigid wall you’re leaning on.

You’re just squinting at your watch through the darkness – seriously, how much longer do you have to fucking wait out here – when the door opens, flooding fluorescence onto the unlit pavement. You straighten, preparing to chew Leonard out for being _late as dicks_ , but when a silhouette half his size and twice his weight shadows the door instead you slouch back once more.

“Yeah, I’ve got it,” Kaikaina says into a phone that’s so old it still flips, nudging the door open with her foot as she struggles to maintain a variety of luggage in her arms. Behind her Sheila gently reaches out to hold the door open, and Kaikaina beams at her thankfully. “Right. Yeah, 10:30, I’ll be there. Mmkay. See you!”

There’s a garbled fuzzing through the phone before she shuts it, glancing up; when she sees you, her whole face lights up. “Tex!” she cheers, prancing through the doorway. Sheila allows the door to slide shut behind her, casting you a silent nod of recognition that you return. “What are you doing out here?”

“Waiting on my ride,” you report. Almost without meaning to, you glance down at the luggage falling off her arms. “Need any help? I’ve got a few more minutes.”

“That’d be great!” Kaikaina beams, and if you felt bad before about leaving Church inside you definitely don’t now. You hang a bag on each shoulder, leaving her with only her own purse and a cardboard box labelled ‘fragile.’ “Sheila wanted help getting some equipment to her car,” Kai explains rapid-fire as your coworker in question silently starts leading you both across the parking lot, “and I was like, ‘yeah, Dex’ll be recording for another, like, half hour!’”

You almost stop short. “They’ll be in there for another _thirty minutes_?”

“Yup!” she chirps, clueless to the way your knuckles have gone white as you grip the box edges just tight enough to bend the cardboard. You’re going to fucking murder Church. “I mean, I get it, ‘cause they’re recording like half a season worth of lines in one night, and I got time to do some editing on Dex and Dick’s Destiny thing so it was worth it, but. Like. There’s only so much stuff you can do with over half the staff missing, y’know?”

“They shouldn’t be _that long_ ,” you grumble, voice a narrow hiss.

“You have to remember,” Sheila reprimands, and when you catch her expression you have to fight down guilt at the venom of your voice, “Richard isn’t going to be in town for the next few weeks, so they have to record all of Sorola’s lines tonight.”

You raise a well-plucked eyebrow and heft one of the falling bags further up your shoulder. “Simmons is gonna be out? But he just got back this morning.”

As it happened, Simmons had just gotten back at the tail end of King Church; he and the rest of Team Red had arrived just in time to hear that Sheila would be the reigning queen in the next few episodes, and the episode ended with Sarge bursting in and shouting about how he was overthrowing the monarchy because ‘America is a _democracy_ , dammit!’ You hadn’t seen any of them once for the rest of the day except for an awkward coffee run-in with Donut. Catch-up on missed office time is really a bitch for a job like yours.

“He got invited to this really big technological con! It’s, like, two weeks long or something,” Kai chirps, and though she’d been giddily skipping ahead of you before her steps have slowed so that you’re side by side, the body heat from her arm radiated into your skin. You should probably move.

You don’t move. “A convention? For _two weeks_?” you demand.

“It’s a series of conventions,” Sheila explains, putting up a hand to halt the two of you. Sheila’s car – a rusty Toyota Pelican that’s had a dent creasing the back since Andy took a joyride that landed him on top of a tree – is parked awkwardly, so you have to maneuver the boxes over the hood and slide through to get to the back where she pops the trunk. “Microsoft is hosting numerous meetings to keep updated with their new releases, amongst other things. Supposedly it’s going to be a very big year for technology. Richard is lucky to be invited.”

“Plus he gets to go to Las Vegas!” Kaikaina chirps, and you roll your eyes.

“That’s _wasted_ on him,” you complain, imagining Simmons lecturing drunk people on the inner mechanics of a slot machine. You sigh and look over to where the recording room’s light is still going strong on the end of the building.

Well. Shit.

“Alright, well, I have about half an hour to spare,” you sigh, glancing at your watch and distantly wishing Church was here so you could punch him.

“Yeah, me too,” Kaikaina hums, rolling one of her shoulders where she dropped the bag and casting you a grin. “You wanna drive to McDonald’s for a bite? I’m feeling some french fries.”

“Uh,” you say.

There is a moment’s pause.

“…wait, you can drive, right?” Kai adds, blinking at you.

You scowl and shrug, stuffing your hands in your jean pockets. You had tried to learn how to drive, but within minutes your mother had been hysterical, insisting you would kill her, insisting you weren’t ready, you were too young, you were immature, you _couldn’t do it_ –

“ _I’ll_ drive, if it’s an issue,” Sheila sighs, rolling her eyes fondly as you startle out of your miniature angst session. “But one of you is going to pay me with milkshakes.”

+x+

“Shit,” you say, rushing into work half an hour early the next morning.

Sheila is already there – she’s always the first one in and the last one out, the gear that kickstarts PFL’s elaborate machinery. You have no idea how the company functioned for so long without her. She’s sitting at her desk when you barrel in, and she ceases scrolling through the file of t-shirt ideas that Connie must have sent her last night to sigh and pull her headphones off. She stows them around her neck beneath her immaculate bun before patiently questioning, “What happened?”

“Simmons is gone for the next few weeks,” you announce, slamming to a stop in front of her desk, breathless.

Sheila stares for a moment. When you fail to expand on the topic, she nods slowly. “…Yes,” she agrees, keeping her voice half-speed and deliberate.

You stare at her with wild eyes. “Who’s going to do the public service announcement?”

There is a moment of pure silence. Then Sheila says “shit” and you both dash to the drawing board.

+x+

The List of Reasons Why You Absolutely, Cannot Possibly Have a Crush On Kaikaina Grif goes something like this.

1\. Crushes are for children. You are a thirty-one year old who has matured slightly past that point.

2\. Her constant peppiness and mile-a-minute tendencies for talking are annoying far more than they are endearing.

3\. She is a recovering drug addict and you were a member of DARE in high school. Moralistically speaking, it doesn’t add up at all, and as everyone knows, you are all about morals. Yes. Really.

4\. She is a recovering drug addict which means that her thought processes probably aren’t working quite right and the person that you view her as is probably not the person she actually is when not post-addiction, and it’s unfair for you to make a judgment call on your attraction to her based on a perception that may not be true.

5\. She’s nine years younger than you. If you’d met five years ago, she would’ve been (rightfully) below the age of consent; even now her brain is still developing. Being attracted to someone who has yet to even decide who they’re going to be for the rest of their life would be pretty fucking douchey.

6\. Emotions remain disgusting and you will avoid them at all cost regardless of whether or not they apply to other people.

7\. She is the sun and you are a dwarf planet. You are not good enough for her.

+x+

“This could not possibly be any worse,” you groan, rubbing your eyes, elbows perched on the table as you and Sheila stare at the paper between you.

The PFLPSA - the Project Freelancer Public Service Announcement – was something that Reggie started way back when that was quickly taken over by Simmons when you hired the members of RED vs BLUE. Originally it was a five-minute list of video games coming out, but Simmons quickly expanded it to a half hour segment involving personal news, answering some frequently asked questions (a weekly favorite is “Are Simmons and Grif dating yet?”) and some general dicking around from the rest of Red Team. It’s been a fan favorite for months now, and Simmons has always been in charge of not only all of the filming, but all the editing as well.

And it’s supposed to come out tomorrow, and as far as you can tell no one thought to have Simmons record it beforehand – and by now, he’s stuck a thousand miles away without signal. He warned you all sending him to a retreat without cell service and Wi-Fi would bite you in the ass. If only you’d listened.

“I can’t believe there isn’t a single person available,” you mumble, tracing the schedule that has absolutely 0 empty blocks excluding lunch.

“Lopez and Donut both have empty slots,” Sheila notes, peering over her glasses.

“I can’t believe there _isn’t a single person available,_ ” you repeat, voice slightly harder.

Sheila glances up at you, the corner of her lip tipping tiredly upward. “I see your point,” she says, “but even if they aren’t…perfect for the job, they may be our only options.”

“I refuse to believe that,” you retort, throwing yourself back into the search. “If there’s a will, there’s a way.”

“If there’s a will for what?” comes a voice from the doorway, and without even glancing up you note Kaikaina flopping into the third chair at the tiny circular table you and Sheila have delegated for freak-out purposes. She sets her steaming coffee (who the _hell_ decided to give this girl caffeine) down on the edge. “’Cause when my grandpa died he had a will and I got, like, 200 dollars, so I’m all about wills. A will expert. I also fucked a guy named Will once. Bad at oral, but nice hair.”

“Simmons didn’t record the weekly update before he left,” Sheila manages to get out before the two of you can be subjected to the feature-length story Kai is undoubtedly about to unveil. “Almost everyone has full schedules. We need to find someone who has the time to do it.”

“I can do it,” Kai says immediately, and you have to physically force yourself not to roll your eyes because that is literally the most predictable thing that’s happened to you today.

“We appreciate that you want to help, but your schedule’s full,” you report. “We’ve already checked.”

“No, look,” Kai insists, so forcefully that you and Sheila both glance up in surprise to find her pointing at a slot on her schedule sheet. “You guys have me down to edit _Destiny Part 2_ right after lunch, but I got it done last night while I was waiting for Grif. And – “ she points to your schedule with Sheila – “we already recorded that _PFL Life_ at McDonald’s last night with the ketchup thing, so you guys are both free then, too.”

You stare blankly for a second. Your eyes connect with Sheila’s.

“How the _fuck_ did we miss that?” you demand, voice deadpan with disbelief.

“Some of us are just more observant,” Kaikaina shrugs with a light grin.

Sheila rolls her eyes. “How should we present it?” she asks, as though the decision’s already been made.

“You know what we should do?” Kai hums, picking up her coffee for a quick gulp – and, before you can answer, continues. “We should be, like, a news team for the update. Since Simmons isn’t here.”

“The Simmons-free news?” Sheila muses from her dusty corner.

“Nah,” Kai shakes her head. “More like…Team Ladies Action News Team.” She grins. “Two teams ‘cause Sheila isn’t a lady, so she isn’t part of the team ladies’ news.”

You glance over at Sheila, who is adjusting her glasses and peering between Kaikaina and the schedule as though the data will become clearer. Though you’ve never straight-up asked what Sheila’s gender preference is – you’ve been reliably informed that when questioned she answers “M808V Battle Tank,” which tells you pretty much everything you need to know – you’re sure that her preferred pronouns are ‘she’ or ‘they,’ and you’ve gathered from her conversations with her fiancé Lopez that ‘binary’ is a term she wants nowhere near her. But despite the hints that you’ve pieced together, you know for a fact that she isn’t out to the general public. Frankly, it’s none of your business why. Kai’s name is a perfect compromise for a team name: it won’t tip any unaware people off to Sheila’s actual gender, but the three of you that are in on the joke will get it.

“Kai,” you say, voice slow and deliberate, “you are a mad genius.”

She winks at you and it doesn’t make your face flush because that would be ridiculous. “I live to please,” she hums, taking a sip of her coffee, and you watch Sheila mark your schedules in pencil as you try to keep a straight face.

+x+

You’re nervous.

You take a deep breath. Your fingers are shaking as you reach for the microphone, and the sound trembles when you pull it to your face. You can do this. You can do this. You can – 

“Sheila, you do it,” you decide, thrusting the microphone at her.

She blinks in a momentary stupor before her eyes snap up to yours. “What’s wrong?” she asks, quizzical. “You’ve been on video before. You did it just last night.”

“Yeah, but – “ You grunt, scratching your shoulder out of habit, and avert your eyes from her face. A few feet away, Kai stops fiddling with the camera stand to glance up at you, focus zeroed in on the most dramatic action in the room. “Not alone,” you finally choke out between gritted teeth, keeping your gaze firmly cemented on a dent in the wall where Bitters got a little too angry at Palomo during the last episode of _How To_ because you cannot be on camera because your mother is on camera on a loop in Church’s dad’s house, because all of your childhood vides are you getting screamed at, because your mother used to black you out of family videos because you are the problem child because you are not wanted because no, you can’t _do this_.

The room is uncomfortably silent for a moment before Sheila takes the mic quietly from your hand and you can look her in the eyes again, however angry your resting bitch face may appear. “How about you sit down and we’ll cue you in,” she says quietly. Distantly you think you should feel patronized but instead you’re soothed. “Kaikaina, is the camera ready?”

Kai jumps from where she’d been watching you with soft eyes, kicking back into work mode and tossing Sheila a grin and a thumbs up. “Hell yeah it is!” she announces, and from the other end of the expansive _RED vs BLUE_ room you can see Caboose and Sarge both pulling off their headphones, finally directing their attention at you three as they try to discern what you’re doing. “So just to be clear, Sheila’s grabbing the camera, right?”

“That’s right,” Sheila confirms. “You two ready?”

You nod off screen and Kai prepares to turn the camera on, counting down on her fingers -3…

2…

1\. On air.

“Good evening,” Sheila says, voice somber. “I’m afraid that Richard Simmons, the host of Project Freelancer’s public service announcement collection, is unavailable this week. Initially, we believed that he was attending a conference, but as we haven’t heard from him in 24 hours we’re forced to assume he took all of our money and ran.”

“Alternatively, he may be dead,” you add, striding on screen just on cue. Your back is rigid, but your face is completely straight, and you don’t miss Sheila’s slight nod of approval in your direction. You watch Kai sneak out from behind the camera until she’s just off screen next to you. “Either way, we’ve been forced to temporarily edit this segment of our company until we’ve been updated. Luckily, the new segment will contain identical information. Just cooler. We like to call it – “

“ _TEAM LADIES ACTION NEWS TEAM!_ ” Kaikaina shouts, diving onto the screen, and just like that it’s a flurry of movement as all three of you shout and holler and Sheila shoves past both of you to grab the camera. “The door!” Kai orders and you dash to it, pulling it open so that Kai – carting the microphone and its cord behind her – can dash out, Sheila in hot pursuit with the camera trained on her.

This is where it gets tricky because your plan from this point on was just ‘wing it,’ but the moment you shout “North brought cupcakes!” and Kai skids to a stop, yelling “Cupcakes are news!” and doing a 180 to scramble in North’s direction, you know you made the right choice.

“North!” Kai demands, shoving the mic into Noland’s shocked face, whose unfortunate nickname stuck. Behind him, his twin sister and her girlfriend Connie snicker. “Why are there cupcakes in your vicinity?”

“Um, I like cupcakes?” he says, eyes nervously flicking between you and the camera.

“I’m afraid we have to confiscate these to ensure they follow health guidelines,” you report, plucking two into your arms.

“Only three though,” Kai adds as you grab the last one.

“Yes. More would be rude. We at the CDC value your feelings,” you agree and the three of you dive off down the hallway again, shouting a “See you!” over your shoulders.

“By the sink!” Sheila shouts and you turn to find David Washington standing paralyzed as you all barrel towards him.

You manage to stop yourselves just before you run him straight over. Kai takes one of your cupcakes and stuffs it in her mouth as you question, “Fuck, whatsyourname – Wash! Dave! David! Davey! New shirt?”

“I – “

“God dammit Wash, what’s the shirt coming out these week?” you interrupt, leaning towards him.

“I – the zombie plan shirt!” he blurts out, panicked.

“Ah, look. Real news,” you hum, looming stance relaxing as you waggle your eyebrows at the camera. It feels ridiculous. It feels good. “We’re so good at this.”

“Hey,” Kai says before knocking Wash’s water out of his hand and shouting “ _Run!_ ” You all take off on a mad dash. You kick a ‘push’ door open that leads into the animators’ room, and Kai calls “Nice!” at you before you both rush Butch’s desk.

“Heya Flowers, community?” Kai demands, shoving the mic at him as his deskmate Reggie watches in amusement.

Flowers – ever unperturbed – patiently begins, “Community game this weekend is Mario Party Wii U, and as always, we’d love to see our supportive fans out to play with us. We’ll be streaming on Wednesday and Friday from noon to two central time, so feel free to watch and enjoy those too. We’re taking asks all day Thursday for our FAQ video, so please ask whenever it’s comfortable for you.”

“Hey, Flowers,” you say, “we brought you a cupcake. It’s a reward for being so damn nice.”

“Why, thank you!” Butch says, happily taking the proffered pastry as Reggie shouts in his vivid accent, “’Ey, don’t I get one?”

“Nope,” you hum, and shove the last one in your mouth just to spite him. And with Kai giggling like crazy next to you, you tear off down the hallway again, and your hair is flying into your face so you have to spit it out and Kai is laughing like mad and the camera is shaking because Sheila’s laughing too and when you glance over you realize that (1) life is wonderful (2) Sheila is as much of a nerd as everyone else in this goddamn office and you have no idea how you never noticed and (3) Kaikaina, right now, is the most beautiful person you’ve ever seen in your whole life.

+x+

Okay. Modifications.

Here’s the List of Reasons Why You Should Absolutely Not Ask Kaikaina Grif Out at Any Cost Ever.

1\. Your last serious relationship ended fifteen years ago with the two of you becoming stepsiblings, which is maybe an indicator that the whole romance thing is not for you.

2\. She has shown absolutely no visible interest in dating you past calling you hot once, and she does that with everyone who comes within five miles of the office so that probably should not be taken as a sign of legitimate romance.

3\. Kai prefers casual sex to relationships. You are not going to demand that she enter into a partnership she’s uncomfortable with just so that you can be satisfied.

4\. She is a recovering drug addict which means that any and all relationships could have huge psychological impacts on her from no until late into her life, and that is a responsibility you are absolutely 100% not ready to take on.

5\. She’s _nine years younger than you._ This should not even be a conversation you need to have.

6\. Emotions remain disgusting and you will avoid them at all cost regardless of whether or not they apply to other people.

7\. She is beautiful and bright-eyed and in need of protection and you are an outsider. You are not good enough for her.

+x+

When the three of you return to the _RED vs BLUE_ recording room from harassing all viable staff members for a good half hour, you immediately drop onto a seat and take a deep, huffing breath. Kai wearily drags herself in behind you, gasping for breath and clutching a stitch in her side. “Alright!” she manages. “Any final words, Sheila?”

Sheila turns the camera towards herself, making as serious a face as possible. Then abruptly she makes a face and a loud, unfortunate wailing noise, and she turns the camera off to the sound of you and Kai bursting into laughter.

“Alright, I’d say that’s a wrap,” you grunt, stretching your arms.

“It _better_ be,” Kai groans, flopping dramatically onto her designated wheeled chair, rolling halfway across the room before she spins to a slow stop. “We probably ran at _least_ a mile. I’m not moving again for a week.”

“That actually may have been a mile,” Sheila says softly, setting the camera down next to her own computer where she’ll edit it in a few hours, when she’s had time to distance herself from it.

“Bullshit,” you retort, and Sheila manages a tired grin towards you. You sigh and settle into your chair, casting your eye towards part five of your _OFF_ walkthrough that you’d scheduled yourself in to edit post-PSA. You sigh and allow yourself another moment of rest before you force your eyes open and focus in on the screen. “Back to work,” you mumble, rolling your shoulders before sitting up, pulling your headphones on around your neck so you can press one side at a time to your ear when you need to.

“Back to _napping_ ,” Kai grumbles, and from the corner of your eye you watch her throw an arm over her eyes and sink lower in her seat. You smile – wide, honest, secret – and turn back to the video, ignoring Sheila’s knowing look and failing to catch Kai’s adoring return smile as you click through to the start of the video.

+x+

You love your fans. You do. But they’re finicky about what change they like and what change they don’t, so if a sudden outpouring of hate was aimed at your impromptu news team for ‘replacing’ Simmons, you would be completely unsurprised – especially since it’s a video game company and none of you are men, so you all regularly get buckets of hate daily. You’ve got a tough skin, though, and you know Kai and Sheila will both make a mockery of whatever bullshit gets sent their way. That’s not what you’re worried about.

The thing is: you enjoyed Team Ladies Action News Team. A lot. You liked working with Kai and Sheila as a team, you liked aimlessly bullying your coworkers for the sake of ‘news’ while Kai kicked boxes over in the background. You liked sprinting down the hallway so you could throw yourself at Church and watching Kai coo over Tucker’s adorable 2-year-old. As it happens, it is easily the most fun you’ve had since the conception of PFL. And even if you never get to do the actual action news shtick again, you really, _really_ want the three of you to become a permanent team together, even if you only unite for brief periods of time.

But if enough fans hate it, you can’t. That’s just the way business works.

Which is why at 8:00 PM on the night Reggie usually posts PSAs, you’re sitting at the computer, sporadically refreshing the comments while dicking around on your phone.

“The hell are you doing?” Church demands, peering over your shoulder. He has a can of beer in his hand and you can hear a preview for one of those ridiculous SUV shows he insists he doesn’t watch in the next room; though he’s dressed only in sleep-worthy sweatpants, he’s clearly still awake, and you have to lean away as he casually throws his arm over the back of your chair.

“Go take a fucking shower,” you complain, wrinkling your nose, and he leans forward so his armpit rubs against your cheek; you shriek and jump away, thrusting your middle finger at him as he laughs out loud. Your stepbrother’s a dick. “I’m gauging the fan reaction to our news thing,” you hiss, cautiously settling back in the center of the chair so you can discreetly refresh the page again. “If it gets a lot of backlash, then we’ll need a different alternative if this ever happens again.”

Church snorts, taking a sip of beer. “Don’t get your hopes up,” he warns, letting his arm slide from the chair and wandering towards the door to his room, adjacent to yours but about twice as big. Church has a bit of a flair for bullshit. 

“I’m _not_ ,” you snarl defensively, and he rolls his eyes and makes a face at you before wandering out of the room.

God, you can’t believe you used to be _attracted_ to him.

You sigh and settle back in your chair, setting your phone down on the table and patiently watching as your page refreshes. Because your computer at the office is state of the art, you had figured when buying your home computer that you might as well save (read: hoard) some of your money and buy a cheaper model. Though it makes you a few hundred dollars richer, the tradeoff is that everything you do is slow as dicks, so the page could spend a good four minutes refreshing on a bad day.

On the plus side, it’s a shared computer so you get to periodically revel in the knowledge that _you_ are the reason Church screams bloody murder about buffering.

God bless America.

You’re so distracted flipping off the door that Church is now hollering at you from that you don’t notice the page has loaded at first. After what must be a full half minute, you finally glance over and – under the ‘I Am The Best’ music video ad currently dominating the upper half of the screen – you see the notification: _56 comments._

You swallow, take a deep breath, and open the comment thread.

+x+

_Holy shit!_ Kai texts you in a crazed frenzy later that night. Sheila texts you a smiley face – the only texting she ever does.

You breathe out and shut your computer.

+x+

“ _How_ many people wanted more?” Simmons demands a few days later, dressed in a _Micro Con ’14_ shirt, staring blankly over his glasses as you fiddle with the X-Box One cords.

“80% of the comments, approximately,” Sheila reports from where she’s lounging on the couch, eyes lazily wandering between you crouched beneath the desk and Kaikaina testing the audio and headphones. “The actual figures may be higher; I only counted comments that demanded more of the team, not those that asked for more of us individually.”

Simmons stares, expression blank. “And when you learned that,” he says, voice deliberate and slow, “your first instinct was… _Outlast_.”

“Something about the game having a camera,” you report, finally connecting the plugs and untangling yourself from the mess that is Kaikaina’s desk, stretching your arm as you stand fully. “Take it up with Church. He made the decision.”

“Are we ready?” Sheila asks, slowly pushing herself up on the couch arms. You glance over at Kaikaina and she gives you a thumbs up in confirmation.

“Yup,” you confirm, and you move to the other side of the couch; you give Sheila a nod and on cue, you both pick it up and tug it up to Kai’s desk, setting it down close enough to the screen that all three of you can comfortably sit on it. Without skipping a beat Kai throws herself across it and manages to stretch over every cushion. You do not watch the dark skin of her back as her shirt rides up. You _do_ shove her to the side and plop down in the middle, dragging your microphone within breathing distance of your mouth and shuffling sideways to give Sheila room. She gracefully drops down on your right, and the couch is just short enough that the three of you are squished, but at least that means all your faces are on the camera.

“Alright, you guys good to start recording?” you ask, eyes sifting through all the screens one more time as you do a mental double check. Instinctively your eyes fall on Kaikaina’s legs. She’s wearing black leggings, but they’re thin and you can see the contours and wrinkles and pink-red marks on her thighs through them.

You force yourself to look away. “Ready,” Sheila reports, shaking her head at some joke you’re apparently not in on, if her secretive smile means anything. “Me too!” Kai chirps, tugging her mic a little closer, and you turn to wave Simmons out of the room only to find his heels on the doorway as he wanders towards the lunchroom.

“Awesome,” you mutter, tugging on your headphones in sync with the rest of the team. You resist the urge to grin at the feeling of the three of you doing what – hopefully – is the start of a whole lot fucking more. And then – Sheila starts the recording.

“Sync,” you remind Kai, and the audio looks good, video capture’s definitely happening, you’re all good to go. Kaikaina takes the controller and flicks through the screen on her X-Box One account, muttering numbers under her breath and opening Outlast on the main screen. Next to you, Sheila breaths in deep and you drop your hands who-knows-where.

“Well, let’s fucking play,” you deadpan, and Kai snorts next to you.

“Alright!” she cheers, smiling at the camera trained on the three of you. “So it’s Kaikaina, Tex, and Sheila, and today we’re playing _Outlast_ for the One. I’ve got the left half of the controller, Sheila’s got the right half, and Tex is moral support.”

“You’re both fucked,” you confirm. “Go team!”

“If we do more parts to this, we’ll switch jobs,” Sheila reports. “In the meantime, someone needs to press _Start._ ”

“Wait, did we decide on the difficulty?” Kai asks, glancing over at you.

“Insane,” you report, nodding at where you’ve already got the difficulty selected on the screen. “ _Duh._ ”

“Is that the hardest one?”

“Damn right it is.”

“Bitching!” Kai cheers, and she’s about to hit Start when Sheila hisses “ _Wait!_ ” and you both turn to stare at her. She shakes her head at you in disappointment and you grin sheepishly. “Insane is the level that has no checkpoints. If we die, we start over at the beginning.” She gives you a stern look. “We would never make it through,” she reports icily, and you give her an unapologetic grin as realization dawns on Kai’s face.

“Almost got you to do it,” you hum before flicking up to _Nightmare_ and starting the game. You drop the controller in your lap immediately, allowing your hands to fall onto something soft and grinning at the text fading onto the screen. “Alright, nerds, let’s get to it!”

+x+

“HOLY _FUCK,_ ” you shout over Kai’s terrified scream, almost throwing yourself over the back of the couch as the mutated human grabs your character. The controller lies on the ground where Kai had accidentally thrown it in a moment of panic, and on your right Sheila stares at you both with a look of deadpan disgust. You watch as the man-experiment-thing throws your character over a balcony, the screen fading black. “Did we lose?” you demand, voice pitched a whole octave higher than normal – then Kai screams again as the character wakes to a priest investigating them.

“Alright,” Sheila begins the moment the cutscene is over, “you guys _can’t_ do this the whole game.”

“How are you not afraid?” Kai demands, leaning over you to stare at her. “That was fucking _terrifying!_ ”

“It was just a jumpscare,” Sheila sighs, voice calm and patient.

“You are fucking _inhuman,_ ” you grumble, bending over to grab the controller and tossing it to her. “ _Christ,_ I’m gonna have a heart attack.” You’re not really sure what you’re holding onto, but your hand is gripping something tightly out of fear, and it sort of calms you down.

“ _Guys,_ ” Sheila insists, but her eyes have wrinkles where she’s fondly shaking her head at you.

“Fine. Fucking fine,” Kai groans, and you shake your head, eyes still riveted to the screen. “Let’s fucking get this over with, Christ.”

“We’re _never_ doing this game again after this,” you complain.

+x+

“Hope you guys are ready to do that game again!” Church chirps the day after _Outlast Part 1_ comes out. You don’t bother looking up from your editing to flip him off.

“We’ll have to schedule it into next week somewhere,” Sheila reports idly, watching over her computer as Sarge and Caboose struggle through a Borderlands easter egg. “I don’t know about Tex and Kai, but I’m _incredibly_ busy catching up on GTA Let’s Plays.”

Church stares at her, eyebrows rising steadily the longer he watches her neutral expression. “You’re not busy now.”

“I’m eating lunch,” she hums, gesturing to the half-eaten sandwich and a small flask labelled _Headlight Fluid._

“Around the computer?” you demand, eyes tracking the mustache animation you’ve been struggling with for _Achieve._ Fucking Grif and his fucking dumb character’s face. “Thought you were more careful than that, Sheila.” You look up just in time to see Sheila stick her tongue out before taking a large, messy bite. You grin and return to your work.

“Well, find a time to schedule it in,” Church snarks, giving Sheila a hard look before he steps away from her computer, wandering over to your chair. “But, uh, Tex, for part one? You might want to look at the comments.”

_That’s_ a shocker. You stop your work completely, pulling off your headphones to stare up at him in surprise. “Really?” you demand, voice etched with disbelief. “Is this real life? Is ‘commenters-are-fucking-idiots’ Church telling _me_ to read comments?”

“Don’t be a bitch,” he grumbles, and you grin in sadistic victory. “Just check it the fuck out. There are some…interesting observations.” His lips twitch up into a smirk, but before you can call him out on it he’s turned away, heel clipping at the edge of the door as he leaves the room. You glance at Sheila, who shrugs at you and then looks away to slurp on her drink, eyes once again trained to a red-faced Sarge and his clueless companion. You turn back to your animation and chew your lip for a moment, considering.

Motherfucker, now you’re curious.

With a sigh, you load up the PFL homepage, quickly tracking down _Outlast Part 1_ at the bottom of the page and opening straight to the comments, wincing when an ad fills your ears and taking a moment to hit the pause button. Realistically, you should probably let the ad play out – that _is_ how you get paid – but frankly, you can’t be assed to sit through half a minute of a virtual date with Josh Duhamel. You don’t even know who that guy is.

At first you don’t really get what Church was talking about, since the comments mostly consist of the usual ‘blah blah women blah blah real gamers’ bullshit, but as you scroll further down, you feel the blood start to drain from your face, reading through the comments with half-shaking fingers.

_e-io-ta: anybody else see tex’s hand on sister’s thigh the whole time? can you spell L-E-S-B-I-A-N-S?_

_GammaRadiation: @e-io-ta, pansexual? more like panTEXual_

_thehandyouredelta: There’s no reason to assume sexuality based on physical contact. Of course, the way Sister looks at Tex is a heavy indication…but that’s none of my business._

_the-t.a.: nice to see tex putting the fuck back in team fuck you ;)_

Your hand is almost shaking as you scroll frantically up to the top of the screen, hitting play and – goddammit, you’re gonna have to sit through this _fucking ad._ You rap your fingers impatiently on your thigh as a lady gets a back massage from a guy with an iPad strapped to his face (what the fuck), and then there it is, the _Let’s Play_ intro, and you take a moment to breathe before you start clicking through the time slots.

A minute and twenty seconds, twelve minutes and fourteen seconds, twenty-seven minutes and two seconds, it doesn’t matter – your hand is resting on Kai’s thigh in every. Goddamn. One.

You take a moment to watch the first big scare when you get thrown off the balcony, and your eyes are attached to your own hands as you scream “ _Motherfucker!_ ” and squeeze Kai’s thigh so hard you’re surprised she doesn’t have bruises from it. _Maybe she does,_ you think despite yourself, and you have to swallow the bile rising in your throat.

“Fuck,” you mumble, closing out of the page and tossing your headphones onto the table, ignoring Sheila’s curious glance as you dodge out of the room.

You find Kaikaina in the middle of what appears to be a very serious conversation about police officers with David. David’s partner (platonic partner? Boyfriend? Who knows) Manuel – better known as Maine for reasons that are beyond you – is leaning against the wall next to them with a deadpan expression, and when you walk in he offers you a rare smile. You nod respectfully in return. You and Manuel tied when the company was voting for “most likely to shoot up the building,” and the bond that created simply can’t be imitated.

“Kai,” you say, forcing yourself not to grab her arm a split second before you reach for her. Immediately, she cuts herself off and turns to offer you a wild grin. Your stomach falls at how attractive she is and how _you should not be attracted to her you fuck._

“Hiya Tex!” she greets, blindingly cheerful. You can see Wash edging away and ignore the waver in your own voice for a moment to snicker. “Need something?”

“Yeah, can I have a moment?” You deliberately don’t look at her thighs. Or her arms. Or any part of her body except her increasingly confused expression. “Just wanna, uh. Talk to you about a video.”

Her upbeat expression falls when she starts squinting at you. “Yeah, sure,” she says, and you think from the edge in her voice that maybe she knows it’s not about the game – but she’s following you anyway, and that should not make your heart jump. “Come on,” she mumbles, tossing Wash a final wave that he returns with thinly veiled relief. When she grabs your hand your face turns bright red. “Let’s go somewhere more private.”

Because Kai is Kai and that means sometimes things happen for no reason, she inevitably leads you into a storage closet, which is pretty much the most ironic thing ever – coming out of the closet, hardy har, fucking hilarious – and then spends three minutes searching for the light switch. She quietly shuts the door as you lean against the far wall. “So what’s up?”

You keep your eyes firmly fixed on the light on the ceiling, because you can’t say this looking her in the eyes but it needs to be said. “Okay,” you begin, but then you have to take a deep breath and start over. “Okay, so. Church brought it to my attention that whenever we were playing Outlast, I was…not…appropriate in my position. With, you know, my hands.”

Kai blinks. “…what?”

Distantly, you wish the lights were off; you feel like some sort of fly beneath a microscope. “I had my hand on your thigh literally the whole hour,” you say bluntly, and you watch as her eyes widen in realization. “First off, I’m pretty sure I squeezed your leg really hard when I got scared and it may have bruised, so if that happened then I’m really, really sorry. Also it was super unprofessional so, my bad. But, uh. Mostly.” You pause and take a deep breath to clear your thoughts for this one. “I’m…a lot older than you are, and I understand that your personal space is different than mine, so I want you to know that if I make you...uncomfortable...you can always, you know, shove me off you or whatever. Especially if I’m doing it without realizing it.”

There’s a stretched moment of silence after you make this admission, and then – “Huh,” Kai says, voice thoughtful.

You raise your eyebrows. “ _Huh?_ ” you repeat, voice imbibed with disbelief.

“Yeah, huh,” she agrees, expression calm except a slight dip in her eyebrows. “Sorry, just – you weren’t doing that on purpose?”

You stare. “No. Why would I – ?”

“No reason,” she interrupts before you can embarrass yourself, “just, uh, you do that a lot. I mean, we’ve never had a cam on our faces, so I’m not surprised no one’s brought it up to you, but, like…you’ve literally grabbed my leg every time we sat together. And I thought it was on purpose, so I kinda thought, you know…” She shrugs.

“What?” you ask, blinking, and it takes you moment to realize that she isn’t staring at the floor because she’s annoyed at you; she’s doing it out of _embarrassment._ “You thought…?”

Her face is even darker than normal as she looks up at you from beneath her lashes. “I thought you were, you know. Flirting.”

You stare for a moment. Then it hits you.

“You brought us into a closet because you thought we were going to make out,” you say, blank. She nods and you’ve never seen Kaikaina bashful but it’s sort of a good look on her, and you hesitate for a moment before she looks up at you shyly and you mumble, “You’re ridiculous,” and you lean down to hug her.

Regrettably, you forgot Kai can be a manipulative fucker, so the moment your skin brushes hers she’s turning her head and wrapping her arms around your neck and you’re very abruptly making out with Kaikaina Fucking Grif and forgetting everything else, just like she planned and she’s kind of uncertain but you press up against her and she suddenly becomes a lot less shy. You make a sort of groan in the back of your throat and shove your leg up against the wall and she gasps against your mouth, huffs out a breath on your lips and you could die like this and be a-fucking-okay.

“Fuck,” you mumble when you break apart. Kissing is sort of awkward in such a tiny space, especially since you have to crane your neck and sort of bend your knees for her to reach you, but it’s so fucking worth it you forget to think. “Fuck,” you repeat, and you’re sort of breathless and so is her laugh when she sees your expression and you can count her eyelashes up close and she is beautiful.

“Shoulda done this earlier,” she mumbles, pulling you back in, and that’s when you go still in her arms because fuck, you forgot, you forgot, you shouldn’t do this.

“Shouldn’t,” you begin, and you want to disentangle yourself from her (because somehow your arms got trapped around her waist and she’s still got one arm around your neck and a hand firmly gripping your hair) but it’s like she’s a planet and you’re stuck in her orbit, like moving further than her body heat would give you scars, so you just tug your head back, keep your hands where they are but your faces far enough apart you can see her frown. “Fuck, we shouldn’t. Relationship. We shouldn’t relationship.”

“Why the fuck not?” she demands, and the half-growl in her voice makes your spine tingle but you reign yourself in, breathe deep, because _fuck_ you’ve got the list memorized by now so you recite it off – romance is gross, she’s too young, you’re too old, you’re not good enough for her, your name is Tex and you are an outsider and this is just the way the world is and she is the sun and you are Pluto and you are so sorry but that’s just how it is.

Her breathing is quiet when you stumble to a finish, but it just makes her words sound louder.

“I can make my own choices."

“I know,” you say, watching her closely.

“I mean – “ She cuts herself off, takes a deep breath, stares at nothing as she tries to figure out how to word it. “I get what you’re saying. About, like, rehab. And my brain developing. And I get that you being older is weird or whatever, and if it bothers _you_ I’d get it. But it doesn’t sound like it bothers you. It sounds sorta like you think it’ll bother me.”

“Sorry,” you mumble, and she shakes her head, lets out a breathy laugh.

“How is this the one thing where you’re not aggressive?” she mumbles, and the arm slung behind your neck slides until she’s got her palm against your cheekbone. “Listen, I get if you’re not into me. That’s fine. But if you’re holding back for, like, your weird chivalrous code or whatever, then fuck it. Fuck it. Let’s just do it. We can take it slow, just – “

“But you’re into sex – “ you interrupt, voice half-pitched up.

“But I’m more into _you,_ ” she says firmly, eyes connected with yours and she looks sad, all of a sudden. “I just wish you were into you, too.”

And when you she says it, you don’t see a star. You don’t see a bright-eyed girl who needs protection. You don’t see the center of your universe, and you don’t see a list of reasons to say chaste.

You see Kaikaina Grif.

This time, you allow her to kiss you.

+x+

“She can’t fix you.”

You sigh and set down your cup, locking eyes with Church, who has finally set down the Sunday comics to give you a long stare. So _that’s_ why he’s been so nice all morning. “Christ, Church, I’m trying to enjoy my day off. Can you lay off the emotional bullshit for ten minutes?”

“I’m trying to tell you because I _care,_ ” he insists as though you haven’t spoken, leaning forward in his seat with sudden passion. You resist the urge to roll your eyes and subtly type _Come save me_ into your phone beneath the table, thumbing the _Send_ button and trying to keep your face stony and professional. “Tex – you’re my _sister._ I _know_ you. And I get that Kaikaina is a ray of sunshine or whatever, but she’s not going to erase Allison” – you visibly wince at the mention of Mother’s name, but he plows on – “and you think she’s going to fix you, but she’s _not,_ Tex.”

Your phone lights up, and you hear a car horn in your driveway just as you check your texts and see _Way ahead of you._

“I’m not gonna hit you because I know you mean well,” you say, standing and carding a finger in your hair. Fuck, you haven’t brushed it yet. Luckily you’ve got a hairband on your wrist so you can just pull it up. “But I can make my own choices. I’m not some kid who needs protection. And I know what you think, but I want you to know you’re wrong.”

“What,” Church begins, but you cut him off as you finish off your ponytail and reach for the leather jacket strung over your chair.

“I know she won’t fix me,” you say, shrugging into the comforting black sleeves. “ _I’m_ gonna fix me.” You offer a thin smile. “She’s just going to be the reason why.”

Because that’s what it comes down to, because your name is Tex and you have always been an outsider, so you have never relied on another person in your goddamn life. Because your name is Tex and you are so terrified of human relationships that you will make and memorize lists of reasons why you don’t deserve them. Because your name is Tex and you are not your mother and that’s…okay. That’s okay.

Because your name is Tex, and maybe you’re a little fucked up, but you’re trying to get better. And that’s okay.

“Where are you going?” Church demands, bewildered, as you grab your keys off the hook next to the kitchen door.

“Didn’t you hear the honk?” you ask, eyes glimmering as you walk to the front door. “My ride is here.”

You try not to sprint down the driveway because showing emotions is still fucking weird, but when you pop open the Pelican door you don’t bother to hide your grin. “You’re a fucking godsend,” you report, diving into the passenger’s seat and flicking the door shut.

Sheila smiles as you click your seatbelt into place. “I assumed his reaction would only worsen as time went on,” she says, putting the car into drive and checking her mirrors before she pulls out of your driveway. “Leonard’s heart may be in the right place, but he can be a bit…impulsive.”

“Yeah, he’s a huge dick.”

Sheila snorts but she doesn’t disagree. “So where did you want to go?” she asks, brushing hair out of her eyes as she glances in the rearview mirror.

You throw your arms up and shrug. “Fuck, I don’t know. Anywhere.” You grin at her and she smiles back, quiet but enthusiastic, and you think maybe you sort of love her and it’s fucking great. “What do you need to do? Let’s do something.”

She chews on the inside of her cheek for a moment, rapping her fingers on the steering wheel as she thinks. “Well, obviously we don’t have to,” she cautiously allows, “but Church wants the next King Let’s Play to be in Minecraft, so…I have some building to do.”

“That sounds _perfect,_ ” you sigh, and she almost glows at your approval. “We could record it, too, save some time for other work at the office. Two birds with one stone.”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking,” Sheila hums, eyes soft as she pulls up to a stoplight. “If you want, we could call Kaikaina and make it a team thing.”

“Whatever you want to do,” you tell her, stretching comfortably in the seat because you don’t have to care anymore. Because you love them.

Because one day, maybe, you’ll love yourself as much as you love them – or even better, one day maybe you’ll love yourself as much as they love you.

Because your name is Tex.

You were an outsider.

**Author's Note:**

> I had an intelligent note planned out but IM HONESTLY SO EXCITED TO POST THIS. HOLY FUCK LOOK AT ALL THOSE WORDS. Okay thank you have a nice day.


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